Charlie Sheen faces backlash for ‘quitting’ HIV treatment
Activists have criticised the actor after he admitted that he’d stopped taking his HIV medication.
Charlie Sheen earlier this week admitted that he had stopped taking his prescribed HIV medication.
The actor – who revealed he had HIV following a media ‘witch-hunt’ last year – said he planned to seeking out ‘experimental’ treatment in Mexico instead.
“I’ve been off my meds for about a week now,” he said on The Dr. Oz Show. “Am I risking my life? Sure. So what? I was born dead.”
“That part of it doesn’t faze me at all.”
The actor said he is seeking treatment from a physician named Dr Sam Chachoua, who is not licensed to practice medicine in the US.
Sheen said that he had been non-detectable for many years – although on the day he filmed the interview he saw the ‘numbers are back up’.
Sheen’s manager Mark Burg later confirmed that Sheen is now back on his proper medication.
“Charlie is back on his meds. He tried a cure from a doctor in Mexico for about four weeks, but the minute the numbers went up, he started taking his medicine,” Burg told People.
However, HIV activists have not responded well to Sheen’s actions, with one accusing him of “shitting all over” those who tried to help him come to terms with his condition.
“He’s spitting in the face of the men and women who have done the hard work and who have saved his life,” Paul Staley told The Wrap.
“If it weren’t for those treatments, he would be dead today. I’m sure of it.”
Staley claims Sheen is not only risking his own life, but those who look to him as a role model.
“It’s very disconcerting, a really horrible first step for someone who announced during his disclosure interview that he wanted to be an advocate for the cause.”
“Advocacy comes with responsibility.”
